SPECIAL REPORT: ACORN Workers Claim Minimum Wage Funds Helping McCaskill
By Antonio D. French
Filed Wednesday, October 04, 2006 at 9:01 PM
http://www.youtube.com/v/oJ6SrZODbHg PUB DEF EXCLUSIVE VIDEO REPORT
Several former and current workers demonstrated today in front of the St. Louis office of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) demanding to be paid for work they had performed and alleging that they were instructed to tell people to vote for U.S. Senate candidate Claire McCaskill while registering voters in support of the proposed minimum wage increase.
Ten-year ACORN veteran Josephine Perkins claims she was fired last week, in part because she informed the teams she supervised that it was inappropriate and illegal for them to campaign for McCaskill while being paid by ACORN and Give Missourians a Raise, the political action committee which supports Proposition B and, according to campaign finance reports, has given money to ACORN to circulate its literature.
Several other ACORN workers also told PUB DEF that they were told to ask voters to vote for McCaskill. But Johanna Sharrard, the political field director for ACORN, denies that is the case.
"That's not going on in this office," she said. "It's not been the case at all."
She declined to say on-camera why Perkins was fired. But Perkins told us the reason Sharrard, who has been at the St. Louis office only four weeks, gave for her termination was theft, a charge she vehemently denies.
Another ACORN worker, Joseph Weick, said he has not been paid for work he did with the organization last month. He also said that he and others were told last week that they needed to re-apply for their positions, which he took as a termination.
"They refuse to give me my check," said Weick. "I guess there's at least about a half a dozen of us that have worked for these people and aren't getting paid."
Weick said he too was told to ask people to vote for McCaskill while registering voters and passing out literature supporting the minimum wage increase, which if true could be a violation of federal election laws.
"These are very serious allegations and we are reviewing our options as they relate to the McCaskill campaign and the potential exploitation of a tax-exempt organization that is supposed to help those who need help the most," said Rich Chrismer, a spokesman for McCaskill's opponent, Sen. Jim Talent.
The McCaskill campaign declined to comment for this story.
